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Why Bill Gates Is A Hero And Donald Trump Is A Zero

Autism is so prevalent today. I’ve been saying this for a long time, that the — I’m not against vaccination but I’m against massive vaccinations at one time in order to save doctor visits with the doctors. and frankly, a lot of people love that and some people didn’t look it. My attitude is if you spread the vaccinations over a period of time, what do we have to lose? Autism is so prevalent.

Trump has been making similar claims on Fox and Friends and on Twitter. On TwitLonger, he made the following summation of his position:

I’ve gotten many letters from people fighting autism thanking me for stating how dangerous 38 vaccines on a baby/toddler under 24 months are. It is totally insane – a baby cannot handle such tremendous trauma. Now they come up with this ridiculous study blaming obesity in the mother. The FDA should immediately stop heavy dose vaccinations and you will see a huge decrease in children with autism. What do they have to lose—nothing—but plenty to gain if I am correct. There is great dishonesty about autism!

Luckily for me, someone smarter and richer than Trump — twenty times richer – has already done the bulk of the job of correcting this statement. On national television, no less.

Cue Bill Gates, from his 2011 CNN interview with Sanjay Gupta, on the retracted paper by Dr. Andrew Wakefield that helped kick off the idea of a vaccine-autism link:

Gates: Well, Dr. Wakefield has been shown to have used absolutely fraudulent data. He had a financial interest in some lawsuits, he created a fake paper, the journal allowed it to run. All the other studies were done, showed no connection whatsoever again and again and again. So it’s an absolute lie that has killed thousands of kids. Because the mothers who heard that lie, many of them didn’t have their kids take either pertussis or measles vaccine, and their children are dead today. And so the people who go and engage in those anti-vaccine efforts — you know, they, they kill children. It’s a very sad thing, because these vaccines are important.

Just to emphasize that: “an absolute lie that has killed thousands of kids.” Gates, through the work of his foundation, has seen the impact that these vaccines can have. Hundreds of thousands of kids still die of measles every year worldwide because they don’t get measles vaccine. In a few countries, there are still cases of polio. If we stopped vaccinating, it would come back here. Whooping cough is making a comeback, perhaps partly because of weaknesses in the vaccine, but also because some people are choosing not to get kids their shots. Trump’s statement that we have nothing to lose by trying out giving fewer vaccines, or even changing the vaccine schedule, which makes it more likely that kids will miss shots, is simply wrong. If there were a link between vaccines and autism, we would be faced with a terrible choice: choosing whether children would get autism, or whether children would die.

Thankfully, we don’t face that choice. At one point, the worry was that overdoses of thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative in vaccines, was causing autism; that preservative is no longer in routine childhood vaccines. But there are no data supporting this worry. Large studies have failed to show any signal that getting more vaccines makes it more likely that kids will be diagnosed as autistic. When I profiled Bill Gates last year, I remember him telling me that scientific proof just wasn’t enough to get rid of this connection in some people’s minds.

“Some scientific myths like the thimerosal thing are hard to get rid of entirely,” Gates said. ”You know, it’s just hard to have everybody look at the data, which couldn’t be clearer on the fact that that is not associated with the increase in autism.”

These kinds of worries hit us right in parts of our brains that have little to do with the analysis of data from scientific studies. When my kids got their shots, I remember being nervous about the autism link, even though I didn’t believe it. Because when you’re holding an infant, the thought that you might be doing something to hurt them is simply terrifying. It takes work to make it go away. But no one is helped if we keep following blind alleys. It would be better to put more effort to make sure that kids with autism spectrum disorders are diagnosed as early as possible, so that therapists can do more to help them.

On one point, I do agree with Trump:linking the rise in autism to obesity is a stretch at this point. I think most of the reporting on this topic makes us seem farther along in finding answers than we actually are. For instance, reports that we may have finally found some genetic changes that may cause autism in some kids probably went too far, as UC-Berkeley biologist Michael Eisen details here. His take: all we’ve learned is that kids with autism have more genetic mutations than those without, but we don’t know if something is causing the mutations and the autism, or if the mutations are causing the autism, or if there is some other explanation. Scientists studying autism are climbing a giant mountain and have only the tiniest handholds.

I also understand that many people don’t want to trust vaccine makers like Merck, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi-Aventis, and Novartis, because they are for-profit companies and have behaved badly in the past. But trusting Trump seems like a stretch here, too. We should at least admit that medicine is more complicated than an episode of “The Apprentice.”

Update: For those who have not been following this debate closely for years, here are some studies showing that there is not a link between autism and vaccines, or the MMR vaccine in particular. The Institute of Medicine concluded that the evidence favored rejecting any relationship between MMR vaccine and autism. I’d also refer people to this study from NEJMand this one from JAMA.

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what? are you kidding? vaccines is BUSINESS my friend. BUSINESS! did you really think that we need all these vaccines? when dan burton has his congressional hearing, countless doctors from the CDC testifying has to recuse themselves!!! because of their relationships with drug companies! when are we going to wake up??

the rotavirus vaccine killed so many children that they had to stop it!! there was never any need for it. but it’s coming back. let’s wake up here and let’s start getting the big picture.ask what and who is driving our laws to have these vaccines?

because they didn’t use thimerisol and there were only a handful that we received, not 40

do you even know what thimerisol is or does or why it was introduced? it is something used so that the industry could save money on packaging. multiple injections in one vial! it is a preservative – it is mercury, a poison! used only for money purposes to avoid packaging costs of one injection PER vial. wake up people!! when thimersol was introduced, autism rates went through the roof!

i’d bet that most people here and in the US don’t even believe that mercury is a poison, or radition for that matter. these are the square earth people. they think its a joke.

Again, no evidence of a genetic issue is in no way the same as evidence that there is no genetic issue. You cannot prove that someone does not have cancer by a lack of evidence for cancer. However, the discovery of one cancerous cell is evidence of cancer. A negative cannot be proved. Most children receive “extreme” vaccinations, but most children do not develop autism. All of your children developed autism (a highly unlikely outcome from a statistical perspective). I am merely pointing out that this would tend to strengthen the argument that there is a factor unique to your children and others who develop autism (This could be genetic or environmental). While I cannot rule out the idea that vaccinations cause autism (I cannot prove a negative), I have no evidence that this is true; just as you have no evidence that autism is you children was caused by something genetic (You merely have a lack of evidence proving that it was).

Even in America, where childhood diarrhea does not cause death because we’re good at rehydrating babies, it does lead to hospitalization. The fact that the original rotavirus vaccine was withdrawn is evidence of the safety demands that are put on all vaccines. We don’t tolerate serious risks when it comes to these products.

let me explain derek how you are an idiot (its obvious your childrens problems came from you) men like bill gates wouldnt be as wealthy as they are without people to purchase their goods you see its very simple “do not bite the hand that feeds” thats like a cattle farmer pushing to have his cattle killed and not sold its completely ridiculous and no i do not care about your problems i would be more compassionate of you werent such a blithering moron you’re just another person trying to make more money off of the government without having to work for it and from your comment i am SHOCKED that you yourself do not have autism

Yeah, all entirely irrelevant. Thimerosal contains ethyl mercury, not methyl mercury. Different compound, different properties. If you’re going to spout off at least have the decency to know what you are talking about before you influence people into putting their children’s lives at risk.